Hotspots
What is a Hotspot?
You may think of a hotspot as a place where you can find a public WiFi (wireless) access point.

There are many commercial establishments that provide free access. They don't do this as a public service, but they do it so you will come inside and hopefully buy their products: coffee, books, etc.. So, trying to access one of these hotspots without going inside may be considered stealing, because you are obtaining access without shopping/buying their product.

How does this effect you? Why not get in on this and become your own hotspot?

There are some safety concerns that you should think about before doing something like this.

By allowing people you do not know or have control over to have access to the internet through your wifi connection, you are exposing your internet account access/reputation to the whims of any scam artist that might pass through your connection.

If you get spam, you must consider how they were able to gain access. Do you think they would trash their access account, if they had a perfect scapegoat? If a spammer has no consideration about using your inbox to dump their trash(scams) into, then adding another layer of anonymity is a gift horse they are looking for.

If you are able to address all of the security issues above and are still interested in doing something like this, then: